Twenty-Three Days at Sea Launches Kickstarter Campaign to Expand Residency

In December 2014, Access Gallery, a Vancouver artist-run centre announced a new travelling artist residency in partnership with Burrard Arts Foundation and Art Contraste.Titled Twenty-Three Days at Sea,this highly unconventional residency offers selected artists passage aboard cargo vessels sailing from Vancouver to Shanghai, for the 23 days it takes to cross the Pacific Ocean. After receiving an overwhelming response of nearly 900 submissions from artists worldwide, it became clear that Twenty-Three Days at Sea is more than simply an artist residency: it is a powerful framework through which to address the complexity of our contemporary condition. Compelled by the sheer diversity of artists’ proposals, and the breadth of creative concerns that might be brought to this sea voyage, it was decided that the initial parameters must be expanded so that Twenty-Three Days at Sea may be realized as a multi-year project, enabling four international and local emerging artists to take this extraordinary voyage each year.

With the conviction that offering further artists this unique opportunity will afford a far richer, more complex set of creative responses to a simultaneously simple and yet profoundly complex journey, a Kickstarter campaignwas launched on August 4th, 2015,so that the community can come together to support and participate in the expansion of this ambitious program.

And, in fact, this fundraiser was launched on an auspicious day, as it was also the day the program's second artist-in-residence, Beirut-based Nour Bishouty, departed for Shanghai on the MV Hanjin Brussels. Bon voyage, Nour!

As of today, the Kickstarter fundraiser has raised 40% of its funding goal, so it is still in need of support in order to afford more emergent artists like Nour the opportunity to sail this seabound journey.

For more details on the Twenty-Three Days at Sea residency and campaign, or to support the expansion of this program, please click here.